


when the morning comes

by mornen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Angst, Himring, I'm Sorry, Morgoth - Freeform, Nightmares, One Shot, PTSD, Trauma, he is there but he isn't, just can't get the whole and those who escaped always felt morgoth's presence out of my head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29591793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Maedhros wakes with a start in the night, and the stars are gone. It takes a second to realise that they are covered by clouds, and that he is not chained again. You cannot escape Morgoth, even if you are saved. He feels him watching.Fingon lies beside Maedhros. He hasn’t woken. Maedhros thinks to wake him, but there is nothing that Fingon can do to comfort him. And that isn’t how love is supposed to be, but it is how love is. It isn’t enough.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	when the morning comes

Maedhros wakes with a start in the night, and the stars are gone. It takes a second to realise that they are covered by clouds, and that he is not chained again. You cannot escape Morgoth, even if you are saved. He feels him watching. 

Fingon lies beside Maedhros. He hasn’t woken. Maedhros thinks to wake him, but there is nothing that Fingon can do to comfort him. And that isn’t how love is supposed to be, but it is how love is. It isn’t enough. 

He gets out of bed and watches the sky. The clouds are low and slowly piling. It might snow. He hadn’t slept for a week before he slept, and that was too long to go even for him. Usually he tries not to sleep lying down, but he must, at some point, always. It always comes back to that weakness. His weaknesses. 

‘Hey,’ Fingon says. Maedhros glances at him, but he feels too tired to even answer that with a murmur. He stares back at the sky. He hears screaming. He knows it isn’t there, but it is still there. He runs his hand over his head, trying to get rid of it, but it remains. It rings in his ears. 

(Cries, long and terrible, with the silence after a relief that he was never granted. He cannot die.) 

‘You tried to save me,’ he says. 

‘Russandol, I did.’ Fingon stands. He’s small and in blue looking like a piece of a pastel sky dragged from the heavens to save him. But Maedhros has only succeeded in catching him into hell. Surely Fingon knows this? ‘You’re not there anymore,’ Fingon says, and he’s afraid of saying the names too. They all are. 

Morgoth has blue eyes. They are not a solid blue, but colours that look mixed together, flecked with green. Light gets caught across them. The pupils are too small. 

‘I am now,’ Maedhros says. Fingon goes to him and rests a hand on his arm. He stares up at Maedhros, but Maedhros does not look at him. 

‘You’re not.’ 

‘I can still see him.’ 

Fingon swallows and doesn’t say what he is thinking. 

They all can. 

No one who has escaped from Morgoth has ever been saved. They speak about it in whispers. They say, ‘his eyes are like the sky.’ They say, ‘his breath is fire on me.’ They say, ‘he is watching me.’ 

Maedhros draws his breath in. It is summer. You wouldn’t know it was summer. Not here. Here ice creeps up the windows. Here the frozen grass breaks beneath your feet. Here Morgoth watches. 

Fingon rests his head on Maedhros’s arm. He stares out at the clouds too as they turn from black to grey to deep purple and light creeps along the horizon. 

‘It’s just a dream,’ Fingon says. ‘You had a nightmare.’ 

Maedhros does not answer. He always has nightmares. It won’t do any good to tell Fingon. He will be sad again. It’s enough that somehow he still loves Maedhros. It is enough that he he isn’t afraid of him. That will always be enough now. 

Fingon reaches up to touch Maedhros’s cheek. Maedhros forces himself to look down into Fingon’s eyes. He does not want to see another soul. He does not want Fingon to see his soul so mangled and torn. 

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Fingon says. ‘I know you think I am.’ 

‘I don’t.’ 

Fingon stares at him, and Maedhros does not know how to tell him that he is not afraid of Fingon fearing him, but of Fingon pitying him. He does not want him to look at what pieces of his soul remain and pick them up carefully and patch them together to try to save him. He cannot be saved. He could be killed, but Fingon did not kill him. 

‘Then what?’ Fingon says. 

‘I’m still there,’ Maedhros says. Fingon shakes his head. He stares out at the morning breaking cold and still. Maedhros puts his arms around him. 

‘I love you, Russandol.’ 

Maedhros kisses the top of his head; it smells of lavender. Maedhros shakes, but Fingon does not quaver. It is enough. The sky is breaking.


End file.
